


A Love Story To The Letter

by whopooh



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Constrained Writing, F/M, Gen, January quote, Lipogram, MFMM Year of Quotes, but I couldn't resist the silly, literary fluff, this might be the loosest connection to a prompt ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 10:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whopooh/pseuds/whopooh
Summary: There is something wrong in the world of Miss Fisher's. Phryne has disappeared, and so has Mr Butler and the red raggers - but there is something more gone, something that noone seems to remember. Jack must go in search for the missing Miss Fisher.





	A Love Story To The Letter

“Good morning, Miss Williams. What can I do for you?” DI Jack Robinson asks and looks at Miss Dorothy “Dot” Williams, standing in front of him in his room at City South Station.

“Good morning, DI Robinson,” Dot says. “Bad tidings. I’m afraid my Miss is lost.”

“Lost?” Jack looks at Dot, plucking with his writing tool, his agitation plain. 

“Lost. Without a sign.”

Robinson sighs. “Nothing in writing?”

“Nothing.” Dot’s worry is obvious.

“Has Mr B any thoughts?”

“Mr B is also lost. And our communist boys.”

“That is curious.” Jack broods on this conundrum.

“I think I lost a thing too, but I can’t think of what it is,” says Dot. 

“Things do look odd,” Jack concurs. “I am not… fully in stock, in my brain, I think.”

“As am I,” Dot nods.

“I think it’s a colossal loss, hard to fully grasp,” Jack sighs. “And without your Miss, how can I find it?”

“I say, you should probably go looking,” Dot prods him.

“Alright. As you wish.”

Jack Robinson quickly puts his hat and coat on, rushing out of City South. This _is_ awkward. So much Jack can’t actually say, or think. _Wait, who is this lost woman_ , Jack thinks for an instant, _I don’t know, do I_ – until knowing it again. Right-o. A captivating lady – his infatuation is of a gargantuan standard, Jack know this thoroughly; Jack knows this woman, how could that slip his mind? His gut acts all wibbly-wobbly thinking of it. But how can this miss simply go missing?

Jack jumps into his car, driving quickly to St Kilda’s. Going through Wardlow scrupulously imparts no indication of what is wrong. 

“What am I missing?” Jack thinks, almost panicking. “What is wrong, and how?”

Whimsically, Jack’s conclusion is to go to Doctor Macmillan’s hospital. Mac is a doctor and must know what’s wrong! If not Mac, who? Jack is not noticing how fast his car is as it pilots towards Mac.

“Doctor Macmillan,” Jack shouts coming out of his motorcar. “What is wrong? You must know!”

“Robinson,” Mac hails him and admits him quickly into a sickroom. “I think I do. Our loss is gigantic.”

“It is, isn’t it? But what is it?”

“You don’t know?”

“Dot’s Miss is missing. Mr B. Our communists.”

“Yair.”

“And so many things I wish to say… simply – off.”

“Yair, truth, that.”

“So what can you concoct from this?”

Mac lights up from his inquiry, just to quickly form a frown. 

“Our lack is of an important sign. So many thoughts cannot form without it. And our companions can’t stay with us without it.”

“That sounds kind of as a paradox.”

“Not a paradox, no. A quandary, I’ll grant you that.” Mac stops pacing to and fro and grabs his arm to pull him into an additional room.

“Look at this!”

In all nooks, Jacks spots his missing individuals. 

“At this location! How can it occur?” Jack holds out his hand to touch skin, but cannot bring out as much as a flinch. “All four dozing, unconscious,” Jack affirms.

“Yair, unconscious,” Mac flings back. “You must try to stir all up.”

“How?” Jack asks, anxiously watching a particular lady’s far too still physiognomy.

“Isn’t that obvious?” Mac says.

“No!”

“You know an old story, of a dozing girl with snowy skin and black hair, don’t you? You must kiss our lady companion.”

“I… what?”

“I cannot so much as _call_ my companion anything – as much as you can’t. This is such awful anguish! Kiss and bring our missing sign back – bring all back.”

Jack stalls, but Mac knows how to push a man, harshly, towards a goal.

Jack thus bows down and waits for an instant, just looking, but finally his lips touch a full, alluring mouth of bright sparkling colour. Jack’s kiss is strong and wanting, not stopping until a moan slips out of this drowsy lady, slowly blinking two slow-moving organs of sight at him: “Ummm…”

“Miss?” Jack says, wanting to add things. “Miss F…Miss Fish…” Jack gulps air and finally says: “ _Phryne._ ”

Time seems to stand still as Phryne’s eyes are finally completely open, and Mac breathes in. “Finally,” she whispers, more at ease than she has ever been, making a swirl in the room. “Finally! I can say Phryne, I can say Bert and Cec and Mr Butler. I can say ‘yes’, and I don’t have to go with that Australian ‘yair’. I can use all the words I’d like to. We’re free!”

She turns to the Inspector, just to realise no one is paying her any attention at all. The Inspector and the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher only have eyes for each other, and before she manages to say another word their lips meet again, more fervently, Phryne rising to sit up on the bed and grabbing Jack around the neck so she can more forcefully steer the kiss the way she wants it. Mac hears her murmur “Jack, I thought you’d never get down to it”, and she briefly doubts they’ll ever separate again. 

“Oh, those love birds,” she sighs, but she can’t feel too annoyed since she’s so happy that she can actually use those words again. “Cec, Bert,” she says and goes over to the red raggers. “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone sucked all the air out from us, and then put it right back,” Bert says with a crooked smile, inhaling thoroughly. “It’s good to be back.”

“Yair,” Cec agrees, earning him a look from Mac that makes him do a double take. “I mean yes. It’s great to be here again.”

“I’ll have to write a severe note to the fic writer. No more going on a diet and getting rid of letters. Especially a letter like ‘e’, as it’s our most common one.”

“I bet that’s what she was after,” Bert grumbles. ”Writers are sadistic, you know.”

“I’ll see to it we’ll have no more of that nonsense,” Mac states, dusting off Mr Butler’s suit as he rises from his bed. “Now we only have one concern left,” she adds.

“And what’s that, doctor Macmillan?” the butler asks amiably.

“How to get those two separated long enough so you can actually leave the hospital,” Mac says and points to the forgotten kissers on the other side of the room. “After a year of holding out, I’m afraid the Inspector’s defences have crumbled to dust.”

The four of them watches some exquisite devouring technique, before Mr Butler clears his throat. “Leave this to me,” he whispers, taking a few steps closer to his Miss and her favourite policeman, “I think I know what can carry through.” Aloud he says:

“Pardon me, Miss, but I've taken the liberty of preparing a roast back home. Will the Inspector be joining us?”

After a couple of heartbeats, Jack Robinson disentangles and comes up for air from the arms of Phryne Fisher, blinking at the company he had clearly forgotten they had. He clears his throat as a counterpart to the butler’s earlier attempt.

“A roast?” He checks Miss Fisher to see she is also in favour of the idea. “If it’s not too much trouble, Mr Butler?” 

“Not at all, Sir,” the butler says and smiles amicably, pretending not to notice the Inspector’s blush at having been seen in such an indelicate state by the four of them. Mr B turns to the doctor.

“Doctor Macmillan, I hope you’ll join us too,” he says.

Mac thinks about delicious food and wine and about the enjoyment of getting to watch Jack Robinson have dinner and pretend he hasn’t just been entirely devoured by Phryne Fisher.

“It would be a pleasure,” she says. “Please, you go first and make the arrangements. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve filed the complaint to the fic writer.”

**Author's Note:**

> How on Earth does this fit with the e e cumming's quotes? Well, to be frank it doesn't. But e e, with his peculiar way of writing his name, made me associate to George Perec and his stint to write a whole novel ( _La Disparation_ ) without using the letter "e" - a very impressive thing, especially as both in French and English, "e" is the most frequently used letter.* So I decided to play with that instead in my fic. Apologies for overt silliness! I wrote this during my free New Year's Day and decided to induge in the silly. Thank you to olderbynow and scruggzi for views <3
> 
> *This is part of the ideas of the literary movement "Oulipo" that played with different types of constrained writing - this one, to leave out a letter, even has a greek name, lipogram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipogram **
> 
> **Even more impressively, Perec's novel has been translated into other languages with the feature of no e:s intact.


End file.
